Home Leave

by Brittani Sonnenberg

Chris Kriegstein is a man on the move, with a global career that catapults his family across North America, Europe, and Asia. For his wife, Elise, the hardship of chronic relocation is soothed by the allure of reinvention. Over the years, Elise once a secretive Southern Baptist, she finds herself becoming a seasoned expat in Shanghai, an unapologetic adulterer in Thailand, and, finally, a renowned interior decorator in Madison.

But it's the Kriegstein daughters, Leah and Sophie, who face the most tumult. Fiercely protective of each other--but also fiercely competitive--the two sisters long for stability in an ever-changing environment. With each new move, the girls find they can count on only one the consoling, confounding presence of each other.

When the family suffers an unimaginable loss, they can't help but Was it meant to be, or did one decision change their lives forever? And what does it mean when home is everywhere and nowhere at the same time? With humor and heart, Brittani Sonnenberg chases this wildly loveable family through the excitement and anguish of their adventures around the world.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Travel, Adult, Adult Fiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Brittani Sonnenberg has an MFA from the University of Michigan and lives in Berlin, where she is a frequent contributor to Berlin Stories on NPR. She is currently a visiting lecturer at the MFA program of the University of Hong Kong. Her award-winning fiction has been widely published in magazines such as Ploughshares, anthologized in the O’Henry Short Story Prize Series, and received distinguished story recognition by Best American Short Stories. Her non-fiction has been published by Time Magazine, the Associated Press, NPR, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and elsewhere. She studied English literature with a citation in Mandarin Chinese at Harvard University. She was a European Journalism Fellow at Berlin’s Freie Universität from 2009-2010. Her debut novel, Home Leave, will be published in June 2014 by Grand Central in the US and April 2014 by Arche in Germany (as Heimflug).

Reviews

[Berengaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

short review for busy readers:
This novel about a professional expat American family has a prize-worthy beginning, a prize-worthy ending, and a tedious "do I really want to keep reading?" middle that sags like a sow's belly after feeding time. Great on the fiction, boresville on the 'real life'.

in detail:
The reason I gave it only 3 stars (although certain sections deserved a full 5) is that "Home Leave" is what happens when a talented writer takes the words "write what you know" absolutely literally.

Sonnenberg has lived in (probably) ALL of the places her fictional family does. I'm pretty sure a good number of incidences she describes happening in Shanghai, Germany and in the US actually happened. They aren't fiction.

If I had to guess I'd say Sonnenberg = the oldest Kriegstein daughter.

That's too much glaringly obvious autobiographical/author insert for my taste, but I'll begrudgingly admit it does give the theme of being foreign and the expat life a genuine feel.

As an American expat in Germany, I totally understand the feeling of not belonging anywhere, of being 'foreign' wherever you go, both in Europe and in America. Sonnenberg captures that feeling beautifully. BUT! However accurate the sections dealing with Germany are (and they are), the situations and people she describes are TOO realistic. Those parts are less a novel than a "My German Experience" blog.

Characters:
Unlike other reviewers, I found the early teenage Kriegstein daughters to be the most uninteresting characters in the entire book. Their petty teen love-hate-rivalries, which take up that middle section, are just plain boring. As are their kiddie/teen daring-dos.

Personally, I was much more interested in the Kriegstein parents, how being a professional expat family wore on them and on their marriage. What being an adult in that "American Bubble" abroad is like.

Unfortunately, Sonnenberg only allows the father, Chris, to speak a few times, mirroring how present he is in the turmoil of the strained mother-daughter relationships that are another theme of the novel.

More's the pity, he's an interesting character. (More interesting than his kids anyway)

The opening/closing:
I loved the opening from the POV of the house. Some of the passages in this novel are simply beautiful. Top marks from me there.

I'd love to see what Sonnenberg can do when she isn't writing so literally about herself. I have a feeling it'd be much better than "Home Leave".

Rather 'meh' although it really had the potential to be more.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed and appreciated the strange structure (chapters told from the perspective of a house or from the "royal we" of expat kids), I felt like the story was at the mercy of--and ultimately suffered greatly at the hands of--the strange structure. The effect of diving in and out of so many different heads (and in so many different tenses!) was that I never understood the characters past the tragedy that befell them. The tragedy is the story's turning point, but then nothing turns.

One of the early chapters, with Chris and Elise in Germany, when Elise is led by a little boy through the streets of Hamburg (a beautiful, unexpected scene!), was the only time I felt like I was really inside their lives, living and breathing with them as they faced the unknown. Past that point, the chapters became summaries--everything seemed to happen offstage; I never felt that sense of excitement again.

There were so many beautiful observations generally, and also insights into the difficulties and joys of living abroad. There were intriguing character threads that I kept hoping would be picked up (like Elise's childhood sexual abuse or Chris's mother's resentment of him), that were simply abandoned or, at the very least, never elevated from character information to character motivation. Just one of those that I wish had been so much more.

[Celeste Ng]

Told from shifting viewpoints and in different forms--from more traditional narration to sections told as plays and even a section from the point of view of a house--HOME LEAVE is an ambitious portrait of a family that wanders the globe. It asks what "home" means when you never live in the same place for long--and what happens to a family when one member is lost. I found it truly moving and beautifully written.

[Jenna Loesch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway. Quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof and may have changed in the final edition. All opinions are my own.

I had a strong love/hate relationship with this book. On the one hand, the writing was good and the story was interesting. On the other hand, the book seemed to lag on and on with no end in sight. Plus, I kind of wanted to murder the main characters at certain points.

The Story: The book starts off with the point of view of the house that Elise grew up in. It talks about Elise's childhood and what it's like being a house, and how when it was new it didn't realize that its human family would someday split apart.

That's the one thing they never tell you when you're newly built: your youngest inhabitants will walk out on you one day, in search of new dwellings. I had heard that people die, of course; I saw the Ebert children grow and Charles and Ada age, even as my paint chipped and my linoleum cracked. But I was naive enough to believe I would shelter the six of them for as long as they were walking this earth.

I thought the introductory chapter was very unique. I've never read a book before where the narrator was a house. I was kind of hoping, actually, that the whole book would be in the perspective of the houses that the Kriegsteins lived in, but I read a lot of reviews where people didn't like that type of narration.

Elise and Chris meet at college, and then very typically fall in love and get married. They then move to London for a few years and are really happy until Chris gets relocated to Germany. This sends Elise into an almost “uncaring” depression, which only gets a little better when they move back to the states, before Elise has Sophie, but it also brings a new problem.

She tried to describe the new feeling, the new urges, the new apathy towards mothering that reminded her of the clarinet when she was twelve. For three years Elise had devoted herself to the instrument, and then one day she simply couldn’t summon the desire to practice. She never missed it afterwards, either.

I know that many women suffer from postpartum depression after having their baby, but then Elise constantly leaves her kid to go on vacations by herself. That’s so fucking selfish to me. I know everyone needs time to themselves occasionally, but Elise was away from Leah more than she was there. Deadbeat Mom 101, guys. And then when the family gets relocated to Shanghai, that depression transfers to Leah.

In fact, contrary to what Mom had promised, the longer we were in Shanghai, the more I missed the States, maybe also because I felt like I’d lost Sophie as a partner in crime, now that she had turned so enthusiastic about the city.[…] With every new day in China, I felt like I had to put on a face of okayness, of tough survival, with Mom and Dad and even Sophie, too, the same way I put on my clothes every morning.

She knew her family didn’t fit in, but being the one that fit in the least was really hard for her. Sophie tried to include her in things, but Leah still didn’t feel as if she fit in. They then moved to Singapore, and when Leah finally feels like she fits in, Elise hits rock bottom with her depresion, and Chris feels like maybe going away all the time for business isn’t what he wants, Sophie dies and leaves them all right back at the beginning again.

The Characters: The only characters that I liked in this book were Leah and Sophie. The parents aren't very good parents, and then the side characters might as well not have even been there. Chris' parents get a whole chapter to themselves in the very beginning, but I don't know if they were even mentioned ever again. Elise's parents and sister get the same treatment. It didn't bother me, though, until the side characters were randomly mentioned like they'd been there all along, immersed in the story.

Sophie was, by far, my favorite character even though she was dead for most of the book. Even in death she was so full of life and I just loved that about her. When Sophie was still alive, she and Leah had a strong bond, the kind formed between siblings who have parents that are semi-absent. They're only three years apart, so they can relate to each other very well. While Leah was quiet, Sophie was outgoing, and where Sophie was being reckless, Leah knew how to be wise. They were the best of friends, and their personalities rubbed off on the other.

There was some jealousy and sister rivalry, but they never let it get in the way of their relationship, which I really loved. When Sophie died, Leah was at such a loss that it took her over fifteen years to accept it and move on so she could be happy again. She moved first to Shanghai, but after realizing she'd never fit in there, Leah moved to Germany. Because she's white, she could walk through the German streets and no one would suspect her of being a foreigner. No one would ever ask her if this is really her home, which is all she wanted: a place to call her own.

Germany was also the only country I had ever lived in without Sophie. Perhaps living here again, I thought, would teach me how to live without her again.

Leah's story was my favorite. After the tragedy of losing her sister, her best friend, I felt that the ending to her story was done in the right way. She'd never have her sister again, but Sonnenberg did give her a chance at happiness, which I was grateful for.

The Cheating: I don't think I'll ever understand the concept of cheating on one's monogamous partner. I think it's disgusting, spineless, and cowardly, among many other things. I have never read a book where I've supported or even been blasé about someone cheating on their partner, and I suspect I never will. I completely understand that the adultery in this book could have been sympathized with, but I personally just can't do it. For this reason, much of this section will be completely biased towards my own personal feelings on the subject. If anyone takes offense to this, I'm sorry but I don't care.

So, after Sophie dies, Elise goes into another depression where she doesn't give a shit about anything, but at the same time she wants her family near her at all times so she can smother them. Makes sense, right?

Even now, as she cleared her throat and told us that she was going on a walk and drifted off, her lanky frame far too lanky these days, I wanted to call her back, rock her to sleep, scream that she couldn’t leave us now too.[…] Yet in between impulses to suffocate Leah and to burrow into Chris like a baby marsupial, I also badly wanted to do the opposite: I wanted to run away from both of them.

She realizes one day that she's tired of neglecting her family only took her twelve years and the death of her daughter, so Elise decides that the thing to get her out of her depression over her daughter's death is cheating on Chris.

Specifically, with Bernd Pinker. I know, I know, a stupid name. And a horribly stupid idea: how on earth could anyone even consider nursing a crush after losing their daughter?

I hate you so much, Elise, but somehow I feel some sympathy for you because of your stupid childhood trauma and depression shit. I still, however, want you to fall off of a cliff for wanting to cheat on your husband right after your daughter's death. But really, the only person I just can't muster any fucks for is Chris because of the sheer fact that he knows his wife wants to cheat on him and yet he decides to do absolutely nothing about it.

And so, with Bernd, I'd decided to just let it happen. I saw it as a forgone conclusion, and, I admit, it was a good excuse for me to tune out even more. Elise was the one who had insisted we needed this vacation together, the three of us, so if she wanted to spend it drooling over some balding community-theatre type, more power to her. It took her off my hands.

You bastard. I can't even tell you how much it angers me that Chris had an opportunity to TALK to Elise about her desired adultery and yet he never took it. Instead, he chose to let his wife have the affair. Instead, he chose to ignore his wife's obvious pain. Instead, he chose to not deal with his marital problems like a real man should. Because the best way to deal with problems is to ignore them, right? Fuck you, Chris. And fuck you, Brittani Sonnenberg for making the lead male character not only a wuss, but a parent that ignores his kid's problems. Leah was suffering greatly because of Sophie's death, and Elise told you about it because a) you're Leah's father and b) she wasn't stable enough to deal with it herself.

Elise had mentioned Leah's overexercising to me, but I'd always dismissed it. I'd actually taken pride in the idea that Leah was just as committed to being in shape for her soccer season as I'd always been for basketball.

Yes, because after watching her sister die on her school's soccer field she's really going to play next season. Moron. Chris' family is just falling apart and he decides the best way to deal with is just to tune out and ignore that it's happening. Leah notices. She knows what's going on.

“I couldn’t stay there,” she finally said.
“Where?”
“At that table. With Mom and Mr. Pinker. And you just sitting there, like, I don’t know, some sad old dog.[…]Just letting her go for it. Just letting this ugly, stupid, British dude flirt with her the whole night, while you order more rice.”

This whole situation. I just can't. It makes me so angry. And then Elise had the balls to say that the affair with Bernd was a good thing.

I've never been able to explain, not to myself, nor to any therapist since, how sleeping with Bernd saved my marriage, even if he ruined Christmas that first year without Sophie. Which was arguably already fucked.

I don’t give a flying fuck how good it was for your marriage in the long run, in that period of time when you were committing adultery—be it a year, a month, or a minute—the rest of your family was suffering because they knew. They fucking knew. I’m okay. I’m done, I swear.

Overall Impression: This book was wonderful in the standpoint of two sisters with such a tight bond that the death of one would propel the other into a lifetime of hurt. Their love was raw, painful, and above all beautiful to read about. I just wish that Sonnenberg would have focused more on them than their idiotic parents who didn’t deserve even a little bit of attention. I also wish that she would have written more chapters like the first one. What killed this book for me, though, was the cheating and, ultimately, the child abandonment. I felt that if Sonnenberg wanted to include such unlikeable characters, she shouldn’t have written any of the book in their perspective.

[Jaksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book. Not at all the kind of book I'd normally read, but so glad I did. Lush and lavishly written, the author has an almost effortless style, or so it seems. Description matches dialogue matches narration matches mood. I seldom find this in any book. When reading, the words simply flow from emotion to snatches of dialogue and pieces of description, but it all fits together into an engaging and intriguing sort of jigsaw puzzle.

Do I carry on a bit too much? Not really. The story in this book is in the people and their lives. There is no grand over-arching climax or finale. There are no monsters to kill or mysteries to unravel, except the very pertinent ones of how we live, and why we do things, and in this book, most of all, where we make those lives. I myself come from a permanently-settled clan: born from people who first came to Maine and Massachusetts in 1630. And stayed there. And still are there. My family is minutes away from me, all of them. I was born here, went to school, worked here and will most likely die here. But not so with the characters of 'Home Leave.' Their lives are like dandelion seeds, scattered not across a neighborhood, but across continents. And they take root. They live out their dandelion-lives in different countries, different cultures, and for me, this is a totally unique and even unheard-of way to live a life.

So perhaps that was part of the appeal because I knew from the start that Sonnenberg is a TCK, or Third Culture Kid herself. Of course I could imagine such people existed, but never would know they existed to this depth until I read 'Home Leave.'

Anyhow, excellent excellent book. I will probably read it again.

I received a copy of this book through the goodreads giveaway program.

[Jess Manley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall an okay read, but with a very disconnected structure and an inconsistent writing style.

There was an anecdote here and there about a family member or a strange neighbour, that doesn't really amount to anything. You think it's foreshadowing or that we'll come back to it at some point, but you don't. I just didn't like the flow I guess.

On top that, the different points of view that we got were good, but the author could have stuck to the main characters. The book starts off with a house telling the story, at one point there is a collective "we", and there is a back and forth between a first person to omniscient narration that just made things confusing, not interesting.

[Brittany Bulger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow and could not get into it. Was a DNF

[Maura Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Home Leave is a deeply disorienting book, starting with the very first page. It took me longer than I’d like to admit (at least four pages) to realize that the opening chapter was narrated by ... a house? ... and then I went back to the beginning and started all over, wondering what I was in for.

There aren’t any more chapters voiced by houses, but that’s not to say that the remainder of Home Leave is straightforward. Brittani Sonnenberg moves forward and backward in time, switching narrators frequently; everyone gets to tell part of the story. And this feeling of being slightly off-kilter as a reader, of recognizing the landscape but feeling like you’re a step behind everyone else, mimics the experience of being an expat. But in the end, I found that I wanted more story and less style. I was completely drawn into the lives of Elise and Chris Kriegstein and their daughters, Leah and Sophie; I wanted more than the disjointed episodes that Sonnenberg offered.

Where Sonnenberg excels is describing the thoughts and attitudes of long-term expats like the Kriegstein family—two parents seeking to escape the small towns of their youth, and two daughters who grew up as “third-culture kids” in Europe and Asia. She captures the discord of being neither here nor there: of being viewed as an American, an outsider, by locals, but feeling more comfortable abroad than when you’re sent back to the U.S. every summer on “home leave.” At the same time, life overseas feels like an extended hiatus; things are happening back in the States, which you can only watch and hear about from afar. That feeling of being suspended makes it all the more surprising when real life—and real tragedy—intrudes on the expat world, as it does to the Kriegsteins.

Like her characters, Sonnenberg has spent much of her life abroad, and her familiarity with the expatriate life is what made Home Leave an enjoyable read for me. I found her experiments with structure and voice much less successful; I couldn’t help but wish that the story of the Kriegsteins was told in a more coherent fashion.

[Marcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something about this book called to me. I would give it 4 1/2 stars. The book starts with a chapter that is narrated by the house the main female character Elise grew up in. I was wondering if the whole book was going to be about the house, but it was not. In fact, it switches right away to what Elise does after she leaves home, her relationship with her husband Chris and their two daughters. The family moves abroad and back again several times. They live in London, Germany, Singapore, China and at times, go home to time in Atlanta and Wisconsin. Maybe because I have had two child that have lived considerable time abroad I could really relate to adjusting to new cultures and then adjusting back to the USA. The oldest daughter, Leah, came to life to me. I did not always like Elise, but she was so well written. I was reading the book one night in bed and had to stop. It was too heartbreaking. I was too emotionally involved and had to put it down until the next day. The only thing I would say is, the part of Elise's growing up and her relationship to her Dad and her Mom were not necessary to the main story. I am thinking the author was trying to explain Elise's outlook on life a bit more, but it felt like a plot line that didn't need to in there to me. I did like how toward the end of the book the author has a few chapters that are about Leah during college and also about every other child that grew up in foreign places and returned home during their college years. It was a clever and moving. I felt what Leah was feeling. This is the first novel by the author and I am looking forward more books by her in the future. Reading her biography, she did write about something she knew. She was raised across three continents and has lived many places in her adulthood. She is currently based in Berlin.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand why a lot of readers did not rate this book highly, it is definitely not for everyone. But I was thrilled with the writing, the characters, and the story. It is a beautiful examination of one's home, family, country, and loss. An expat family follows Chris as his job takes his wife Elise and daughters, Leah and Sophie, from country to country. At various intervals the family takes home leave, a period of time that is spent back "home" in the United States. Chapters are told from the perspective of various family members as they move along in time and place. There are some sections narrated by unusual characters, but unlike some readers this didn't bother me at all, in fact it is what makes this book a 5-star book rather than 3 or 4.

By telling this story of an expatriate family Sonnenberg makes you think about what home means and if you are constantly on the move do you really have a home? Can you ever stay in one place at all? If your family suffers a loss what does that mean for the members of that family? Can the fractures in the family be healed? Or are the individual members so adrift that coming together again is impossible.

If you are looking for a good story, but also want something to think about after you've finished I would recommend Home Leave.

[Bill Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my complete review here, on my blog about literary fiction by women. http://readherlikeanopenbook.com/2014...

Brittani Sonnenberg’s debut novel, Home Leave, is a moving multiple-narrative exploration of the life of a peripatetic family torn asunder by a death in the family. The Kriegsteins (parents Chris and Elise and daughters Leah and Sophie) move around the world as a result of Chris’s job, leaving each member somewhat unmoored, with no real place to call home. Their travels and range of experiences lead the reader to consider what makes a place a home, whether family is enough to keep one grounded in a constantly changing environment, and how someone eventually comes to belong to both a place and a group of people....

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel caught my eye because my husband and I have spent some time abroad and look forward to raising our kids internationally someday. I feel that I was a bit misled by the description. The book focused less on international living and culture and much more heavily on grief. With that being the main theme, the story was quite heavy and not an easy read for me. Also, the chapters were written from the perspectives of different characters- sometimes with chapters jumping around with multiple characters' perspectives. I have read books like this before and loved them, but in this case, it just didn't work for me. I didn't really get a chance to fall in love with any of the characters because of all the jumping around. That lack of complex character development also made me feel less motivated to finish the book. I did finish it, but it took many nights. Not my favorite read.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books is well worth reading. The author does a wonderful job of evoking the experience of living abroad, moving from place to place, and the meaning of "home" in that context. She also evokes well how the experience of a great loss can impact people differently. I was not surprised to learn that much of heinie was autobiographical. Personally, I didn't particularly care for the beginning or ending, however I liked some of the other literary techniques she used, multiple voices, setting it up in a mostly non-chronological way, etc. She also did a nice job of developing most of the characters; there were times I wished she had spent more (or any) time on some phases of hygienic lives, but the book was tight, moved at a good pace, and had some wonderfully written passages.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't a huge fan of the writing style, but as an expat kid, this really touched close to home. Loved reading about the countries the family lived in and knowing that someone else has that "where do I really belong?" feeling. The author was really able to express how a lot of expat kids feel after growing up overseas.

[Debbie Berris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this first novel by Brittani Sonnenberg and I will read anything else she writes. This unusual book includes themes of grief, communicating with the dead, expat Americans living abroad, grappling with coming of age, Southern culture, and familial sexual abuse. They are all integrated beautifully.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the book has many different stories and perspectives, it never really got me to the point where I wanted to keep reading. It took me so much l ok anger than ot should have to finished. The author should have chosen one storyline whether the grief or the abuse or the traveling to focus on biy or was to many topics that were never fully digested.

[Marnie Kaplan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you.” – Neil Gaiman

As I read Home Leave, the above Gaiman’s quote echoed through my head incessantly (until I eventually googled it to find the exact right wording). Home Leave is a perfect example of an author telling a story only she can tell. Sonnenberg’s own childhood growing up on three continents allowed her to convincingly write about an American family’s expatriate life. Her own experiences give her characters an authenticity that grounds the story.

I read about Sonnenberg and review of Home Leave before actually reading the book, so I was aware that the main storyline tracked Sonnenberg’s own experiences. The novel is about an American couple raising their two daughters abroad. Tragedy strikes and the novel probes: would this tragedy have occurred if the family was living somewhere else? Sonnenberg, grew up outside the US and suffered the death of her sister. She initially started writing a memoir but found fiction to be a better vehicle for making sense of her own history. While Sonnenberg’s experiences ground the novel, it is her inventive narration that captured my interest.

The novel is told from various perspectives. The first narrator is the house at 1116 Arcadia Avenue, Elise Kriegstein (formerly Elise Ebert) childhood home. 1116 Arcadia Avenue is a unique narrator and her voice is quite distinct. Even upon re-reading I marvel over the sentences:

“But I was so thrilled to see Elise that I didn’t dwell on her odd behavior, or on the fact that my insides felt like they had ten years earlier, during
Vidalia’s only recorded earthquake. Most of my friends, the older ones, can recall similar incidents of shakiness or decay and the depression that
followed, knowin they were now officially over the hill.”

It’s a clever construct to have a house reveal family secrets, and yet one that makes so much sense. So much occurs within a family home, and so many stories lurk inside physical spaces. A house with an aging matriarch would see and understand a family but also have its own unique lens outside of each family member. 1116 Arcadia Avenue reveals a great deal about the Ebert family, and her narration helps the reader to understand why Elise desired to leave Vidalia and her family history behind, and why she has been away for five years. She also slowly reveals additional details about the tragic events in Elise and Chris’s life. 1116 Arcadia also narrates Ada’s (Elise’s mother ) decline and mourns the loss of its complicated inhabitants. Later, Sonnenberg introduces the idea that deceased people can come back to life in the form of houses – an interesting idea that connects to other fanciful narrations in the story.

Next the reader journeys to a retirement community in Chariton, Indiana. Chris Kriegstein’s parents are newly ensconced in this world, when they receive a phone call from a student creating a Chariton High Athletes: Where Are They Now feature for the school newspaper. Chris was a basketball star at Chariton High School; his skills on the court catapulted him from his small town to the University of Georgia and eventually to a professional life that spanned countries and continents. Chris Kriegstein’s parents – Joy and Frank-- have compelling voices. They sound like many aging seniors. They gave up their farm, they wish their son was closer, they don’t understand scanning, they try their best to understand the next generation’s choices. Joy believes her daughter “missed her train” when she broke off her engagement to a high school geometry teacher in 1975. Frank has started tearing up quite a few times a day. He takes it upon himself to respond to the high school newsletter which was factually inaccurate and writes a letter to the editor. Ultimately Joy decides to write her own article too – about her single fifty year old daughter who “puts things where they belong.” Overall, this chapter helps the reader to understand Chris’s unique family history while also seeing that storytelling is uniquely different based on who controls the pen.

Part two finally provides the perspective of Chris and Elise. In Germany in 1981, Chris rides his bike to work each weekday, and Elise sleeps in while gestating their first daughter. Elise is contacted by a German family with a similar last name who is mourning their daughter and mother and is powered forward through a unique experience. The new parents are then in India and Philadelphia. Eight thousand miles apart from each other, each encounter a corpse and are deeply shaken. Both return home with important news – another baby and another home base. We are introduced to the idea of the new child, before we suddenly learn of her death.

In some ways the structure of the novel is unsettling. In the beginning it was hard to figure out where the story was going. It took a while to realize that part of the novel was being narrated by a ghost. But I think the unsettling narration successfully helps the reader to better understand the experience of being an expatriate. We are jostled and zoomed forward, we arrive places before we are ready to get there. We have to turn back to previous chapters to remind ourselves of specific details. We are traversing different time periods and continents and thus we can truly understand what it means to live life in a different country.

In Part four, we see the aftermath – we get to see the experiences of the family through the eyes of the remaining daughter, and we get to feel her sense of displacement as well as her hunger for a sense of home. We also get to see how Chris – the roving father—has been affected by his loss. He dreads Leah’s wedding as it marks a further step away from the time when they were an intact party of four.

Sonnenberg has created unique characters with unique experiences and very specific lens on the world. They felt deeply real to me – self-centered, flawed, broken, striving, human. She has taken her own experiences and used them to create such an artful universe full of probing and lingering questions. I highly recommend Home Leave and know I will read it again and likely glean even more meaning from its themes and stylistic choices.

[Alie Knish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was hard to put this book down, I did not have any trouble with the changing “voices” of the characters, I enjoyed the book more, because of it. Each different character reacted and worked through their loss in their own way. Could the characters have been developed further? Yes, they could have, but I dont think that would have served the purpose of this book in my opinion. This book, to me, is about loss, loss of loved one, loss of “home” or what we think of as home, identity, who we are as people and as individuals especially in certain situations. I personally, got a lot out of this book and many of the author’s phrases are little gems eg. Comparing US to Berlin ....”I left plastic expressions of sympathy for a society with sadness in its marrow.” Or “Germans have never been accused of being a lighthearted people, and many wore their history like a hair shirt”. These are powerful sentences that reflect the authors’ maturity. This book is an honest account of one family’s struggles. None of us know how we react in any given situation until we are placed in a situation. I highly recommend this book.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might have liked this book more if I found any of the characters likable. Unfortunately, only Sophie had any promise and she was pretty much written out of the story. Elise was extremely self focused throughout most of the book only to seem to want a close relationship with Leah when it was way past the time that Leah needed her. Chris came and went, dragging his family along, willing or not. Leah was emotionally withdrawn and never developed into a character that the reader could bond with. She didn't seem to know who she was or what she wanted. Always seeking, never finding, she left me wondering if she would ever be happy or settled.

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise and characters were interesting, but the opening almost put me off the book entirely. I thought, "I hope the whole book isn't told from this perspective." It got better, and I liked that the story was told by different family members. I also liked reading about the expat life, and in fact, that is why I picked this book. Parts of the story were very moving, but overall, I feel like this book just won't be one I remember to recommend, that it won't persist in my memory.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

My definition of "home leave" has pretty much always conflicted with the federal government's stipulations of its purpose. Although the specific situations this family faces do not exactly match my own, I identified with their challenges, especially the frustration and confusion that comes from feeling that "home" is not a place but, rather, a feeling generated by relationships and not geography.

[Jill Hallenbeck · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story seemed interesting from the flyleaf. This book had too many personalities and the characters were not distinct enough to remember. I usually cut a new author a break, but this book was not good, almost a DNF. It was best in the middle, so I did finish. The first chapter's narrator was a house, just so you are not as confused as I was.

[Isabelle | Nine Tale Vixen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved figuring out that the first POV was the house's; that was cute and refreshingly unexpected. Afterward, though, the unlabeled POV switches were awfully confusing. Some interesting ideas and scenes, but overall not my cup of tea.

[Ines Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those difficult to follow, multi narrated books where you are just never quite sure who is who. Apart from not enjoying the style, the content was interesting and gave an insight into expat life and the different way it affects family members.

[Carly Coonan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the many points of view this book has. I would recommend reading this book to anyone. Really got immersed in the character's feelings. Personally, I didn't find it difficult to follow like others did.

[tisasday · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very fun to read about Singapore in fiction prose but with accurate details! It was also very fun to read perspectives from a house. It took personification to the next creepy level. For all the fun, though, the book lacked the punch of exposition.

[Kara · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, this is a dead kid book. And probably something I should not have read right before my kids leave for the summer.

[Kristen Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting storyline setup by the author, though it was extremely confusing at the beginning. I thought overall the story was enjoyable but not a book I would read more than once.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the overall story to be very good, but the jumping perspectives/points of view made it difficult at times.

[Faye Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusually written from many perspectives (all of the characters AND a house). Story of an ex-pat family.